The Feldenkrais® Method of Somatic Education:
Awareness Through Movement®

Awareness Through
Movement lessons are verbally directed sequences exploring various
themes of human form and function. Feldenkrais is concerned with
the cultivation of effortlessness and efficiency through self-understanding.
These lessons can be done lying, sitting, standing, and in other aforementioned
configurations, but primarily they are done lying down. Feldenkrais,
a judo master, understood what could be called the “geometry of movement”
and organized his lessons around principles such as the six cardinal
directions, the three planes of movement, circular and spiralic movement,
and other geometric configurations all originating from and supporting
human form and function.

Let me give an example of how the Feldenkrais work could benefit
someone learning a Qigong form. There is
a Qigong moving posture called Swaying the Heavenly Pole, which
is a rotational or twisting action of the whole body. Observing some
people trying to learn and practice this in my Qigong class, I couldn’t
help but see how stunted certain students were by the pressures of
time, the severity of learning the “correct”, classical form, and
the limits of their own, unknown habits. Swaying the Heavenly
Pole is a standing posture. Developmentally speaking, standing
on two feet (bipedal) is the most sophisticated and complex organization
in the animal kingdom. Feldenkrais realized that much could be learned
by removing oneself from this orientation in space. In other words,
by lying down one can begin to release the muscles usually engaged
in maintaining upright posture. This potentially frees one’s attention
to be able to focus on other elements of one’s self-organization,
such as the degree of effort one habitually uses to move or simply
to be. These lessons are exquisitely designed, so that one may focus
on smaller increments of movements, the smaller components of the
bigger forms. For instance, one has the chance, perhaps for the first
time, to understand how the movement of the eyes affects the movement
of the head and neck, and therefore the entire spine. Using non-habitual,
novel coordinations of eye/head/neck movement, one can greatly increase
ease of motion (quality), as well as range of motion (quantity).
Further explorations involving the shoulder girdle and arms, the rib
cage, pelvis, and legs, and their interrelationship, help to further
one’s understanding not only of the action of twisting, but of one’s
own anatomy, physiology, and psychology; or, in short, one’s soma.
Upon returning to standing, and to the classical posture, one has
a new freedom and understanding heretofore unattainable and elusive.